How Did the DMCB Do With It's Healthcare Predictions for 2012?

Posted Jan 28 2013 8:28pm

While the Disease Management Care Blog is pretty good at spotting current health policy silliness, its track record at predicting the future has been rather spotty. Regular readers have undoubtedly forgotten this brazen attempt at 2012 health care augury , but the transparent DMCB refuses to bury its mistakes.

So how did it do with its Ten 2012 Predictions?

1. Mitt Romney will win the Republican nomination and avoid discussing health care. The DMCB got some of this right, but who would have predicted that the President would cleverly upend his opponents by embracing the term "Obamacare?"

2. A close election will hinge on an improving economy, not on Obamacare. In the end it wasn't really that close, but the DMCB was correct in foreseeing that Mr. Romney's candidacy would be undermined by dropping unemployment levels and the bottoming out of the comatose housing market.3. The Supreme Court will rule Obamacare unconstitutional: Boy, the DMCB got that wrong. But in its defense, few foresaw that SCOTUS would ignore the Affordable Care Act's statutory language and rule that a penalty was really a tax all along.

4. There will be no generalizable and published peer-review studies on the electronic record of the medical home that conclusively show that either saves reduces health care costs. "Bingo!" says the DMCB. It hopes 2013 is different and that a p value is < 0.05.

5. ACOs will not criticize CMS about the tardy delivery of claims data necessary to manage its assigned populations. The DMCB says the silence over this issue is deafening, which means either a) CMS has overcome its dismal track record on providing timely information or b) the ACOs are reluctant to go public with any concerns. The DMCB has heard rumors that the latter is true.

6. Speaking of ACOs, their physicians will trump patient preferences over savings. The DMCB says the jury is still out on this, but time will tell if its call about this ACO Achilles heel is as important as it thinks it is.

7. Health exchange deadlines will be pushed back. To the DMCB's knowledge, CMS is holding firm on the fall 2013 implementation date. The DMCB takes some credit, however, for being among the first to spot this issue and bring it to its readers' attention.

8. CMS will kick the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) down the road. "Bingo again!" says the DMCB. It got his one right and looks forward to how Congress will deal with this in 2013.

9. Medical academics will increasingly turn to social media instead of print to make their mark on the scientific world. The DMCB believes this trend is continuing but has yet to reach a tipping point.

10. CMS Interim Administrator Tavenner's status will remain in recess limbo. OK, it wasn't all that hard to bank on continued partisan bickering, but the DMCB got this one right too.